Miscommunication
by UniquelyMi
Summary: Parvati looks at Hermione, reading, and sees her sister, absorbed in books, vicious when disturbed. Hermione looks at Parvati, talking with Lavender, and sees her old classmates, ignoring her as she sat on the sidelines, teasing her whenever they had the chance. One shot.


**Disclaimer: ****Do you think J. K. Rowling writes like this? Of course not, which means I'm not her. And since she's the only one who wrote the Harry Potter books, I obviously did not.**

Parvati Patil glanced at the third member of their dormitory, Hermione Granger, as she chatted with Lavender Brown. The girl was sitting on the side of her bed, shoulders hunched a bit forwards, her nose buried in a book, bushy hair hiding her face. She looked a lot like Padma did when she didn't want to be noticed. Parvati turned back to Lavender, wondering when the right time to introduce herself to Granger would be. She didn't seem to ever come out from behind her book, and she knew from long experience with her Ravenclaw sister that disturbing a reader was never a good idea.

"Yeah - cool!" Parvati said, agreeing with whatever Lavender had said, mentally scolding herself for not paying more attention.

Thanks!" Lavender beamed, pulling out her homework. "Isn't Professor Snape so mean?"

"Merlin, yes!" Parvati agreed, glad to have someone to complain to. "And he hates Harry Potter."

"I know, right!" Lavender exclaimed. "I wonder why."

"He shouldn't have targeted Potter like that," Parvati said. "Even Padma wouldn't have known the answers to some of those questions."

"That Granger girl seemed to, though," Lavender said carelessly. "Did you see her stand up, that teacher's pet?"

Parvati shot a sideways look at the girl, her head still buried in the book, and said cautiously, "She's Muggleborn." You couldn't expect a Muggleborn to come to Hogwarts and not want to prove herself, after all. And besides, she was probably disoriented by Hogwarts. Maybe in Muggle schools people like her dominated the class. If Muggles even had schools, that was.

"So?" Lavender asked. "She probably would have done the same if she was pureblood, the show off. She probably did the same at her Muggle school, if Muggles even have schools, that is."

Parvati felt ashamed of how callous her thoughts sounded when Lavender said them out loud.

"Of course they do," Parvati said.

Lavender let out an un-ladylike snort. "Sure. Stuffy one-room schools with dirt floors and no lights. I wonder how anyone studies."

Padma's words came to Parvati's mind. Her twin had gotten her theories that Muggles were much more advanced than most wizards thought ("After all, they have cars!" she'd argued) confirmed by her housemates. "I'm sure they have more than that. After all, they drive cars."

Lavender shrugged dubiously. "Whatever. She's like -"

Parvati stopped her, then pointed at Hermione, reading, realizing that Lavender would be undeterred. She hissed, "Have some respect, will you?"

Lavender, to her credit, looked ashamed, whispering "I didn't see her," and they talked safely for a few minutes. Parvati felt a slight tinge of remorse for ignoring Granger, but then stuffed it. Padma had hated it when anyone interrupted it. Parvati decided it was her conscience being irrational.

As they got up to leave a few minutes later, Parvati sneaked a glance at Granger. The girl had pushed back her hair. With one hand she was swiping at a tear, though it didn't make much of a difference to her sticky, tear stained face. Pavarti wondered what Hermione had been reading to make her cry.

"What do you -"

* * *

"think Granger's - ?" Hermione heard before the door shut.

Hermione slammed her book closed, bursting into furious tears that she had been restraining, wishing she had a Kleenex. She was sick and tired of being overlooked like this!

Hermione had been overjoyed to find out she was a witch. _Ha!_ She had wanted to say to her tormentors. _I'm different from you!_ _I'm special!_ But she never had, like she never had shouted at them, confronted them, like she did in her imagination, defeating them. She had happily assumed that everyone else would be similar to her; that she was entering a world where she would be understood.

Those hopes had been quickly smashed. Before, she had seized every opportunity to help others because that was the only time she could snatch a bit of conversation with one of them. Here she was a Muggleborn and could help nobody. And all the children were the same as the ones at her old school, especially that Ronald Weasley. Hermione felt horrible for his brother; she could certainly sympathize.

Life was the same as it had always been. Her two dormmates, the only people the ridiculous House system allowed her to befriend closely, were both as silly and thoughtless as the other girls she knew had been.

"Teacher's pet, am I?" Hermione said out loud in a vicious tone. She pulled out her wand. "Maybe it would serve you well to try it. Maybe you wouldn't be a mindless - Expelliarmus! - brainless - Stupefy! - thoughtless - Accio! - idiot! Engrogio!" she shouted, mindlessly punctuating each word with a spell, imagining the faces of Brown and Patil. Only the last one worked, which only served to make her burst into tears again. How she wished she could actually do that.

She pointed her wand at herself in frustration. "Aguamenti!" she shouted, and got a faceful of water shooting from her wand into her face, making her splutter but stop crying.

_One day I'll be better than them,_ Hermione told herself. _And then they'll need my help. One day._

Some days, that was all that kept her going.

**So, what do you think? **


End file.
